Fail: Danish city wants to import marijuana from Washington, Colorado

We received a news tip last night from The Copenhagen Post’s news editor, Justin Cremer, who explains that city officials in the capital of Denmark are anxious to legalize marijuana there and import supplies from Washington, Colorado or both.

“If we get the three-year trial, it will be important to work as quickly and effectively as possible, so we are looking abroad for where we could import cannabis,” Deputy Mayor for Social Affairs Mikkel Warming told the Post. “Yes, we are looking at Colorado and Washington, but we’re also looking at places like Great Britain, where there is state-controlled production of marijuana for medical purposes.

“The US states of Colorado and Washington recently legalized marijuana for recreational use, so it makes sense to learn from their experiences and to explore the possibility of importing from them.”

The city wants to import marijuana in order to do a runaround on the black market there.

Cremer wrote us:

“… there is an area in Copenhagen known as Christiania, which was established by squatters some 40 years ago. The sale of hash and marijuana flourishes there although it is illegal. This has been an ongoing legal hot potato for decades, particularly given that the hash trade is now run and organized by the Hells Angels. It is particularly for this reason that the mayor and city council want to legalize it.

“They argue that it will keep the money out of the hands of criminals. The federal government, which is controlled by the mayor’s political party, has previously rejected legalization even though the current prime minister has previously advocated for it. The city council, however, pushes on and points to the fact that Copenhagen battled with the national government for years before finally getting legal injection rooms for heroin users.”

Of course this is just the kind of thing Washington and Colorado have vowed not to do … even if Copenhagen officials could figure out a way around the feds and international treaties and agreements.

The key policy issue, Inslee indicated, is “leakage of marijuana outside the state of Washington.” Inslee promised the Justice Department and Holder, in his words, that Washington will further clarify “how we prevent distribution of marijuana outside the state of Washington,” and how the state will “try to make it as much as possible that marijuana under this initiative will be used only in the state of Washington.”